Who Will Say Her Name?

On April 12, 2018 in Shreveport, Louisiana, Johnathan Robinson intentionally shot and killed his ex-girlfriend Rannita Williams during a live stream on the Facebook social media platform. After the shooting, he engaged the police in an hour-long stand-off wherein he shot at officers, wounding one. After his arraignment, a judge set Robinson's bail at $2.5 million. Previously, Robinson had a felony conviction in 2015 stemming from a domestic assault for which he received probation and a suspended sentence.

The following is what people are NOT going to talk about.

Robinson received a slap on the wrist for a vicious, aggravated assault. Rather than simply saying the penal code is broken, slaps on the wrist are usually attributed to wealth, privilege, maleness or whiteness. However, Robinson is not wealthy, privileged or white and if it's one thing they love to do in Louisiana, it's put black men in prison. Therefore, it boggles the mind why he wasn't charged with domestic abuse aggravated assault which carries a max 5 year term and MIGHT have saved Rannita Williams life.

As not only a felon but also a domestic abuser, Johnathan Robinson was doubly prohibited from buying or owning a firearm. How did he get one? He discharged his firearm 6 times in Rannita Williams direction and prevented help from reaching her for over an hour. No background check, no magazine restriction, no gun-specific ban--no firearm regulation of any kind--would have saved her life from this attack. The only thing that might have given her a chance would have been shooting him before he shot her.

The police forgot the Golden Rule of policing in America: black suspects are NOT to be apprehended alive. Especially not black men that shoot at and/or wound officers. Given the disproportionate number of black males in prison, they forget this rule quite frequently, so it might just be an unremarkable fact.

After Robinson intentionally murdered a mother live for the entire world to see, engaged in a stand-off with cops, shot a cop and became combative in jail...a judge determined he should be granted bail. I doubt Robinson has the bond price and I doubt anyone is going to provide it for him, so he'll sit in jail where a danger to the community belongs. However, you might recall a certain shooting, by a man of a certain race, using a weapon of a certain kind, against people of a certain other race in Tennessee that has held American attention for the last two weeks. That alleged mass murderer was granted bail also, but the difference is there was community uproar and his bond was revoked--as it should have been. As is typical, when their isn't much to gain politically, those crying foul the loudest disappear.

Neither Donald Trump nor the NRA has spoken out against this act of senseless violence...and neither has Barack Obama, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Oprah Winfrey, Rihanna, Beyonce, Corey Booker or Angela Davis. And, nobody with a voice will. Nobody cares about the day-in-and-day-out violence that is a byproduct of social and moral decay. Nobody cares about suffering that isn't polarizing, and can't be monetized or politicized. Rannita will get no hashtag and no law, because, frankly, nobody cares about the Rannitas of this world. Nobody will say her name.